seconds, hours and days
by ncfan
Summary: 365 kunoichi-centric drabbles and oneshots.
1. 01

**Characters**: Karui, Samui**  
Pairings**: None**  
A/N**: The first ten chapters were originally going to be part of a long (very long) oneshot, but I decided to break up each segment into chapters and use them instead. Because of that, these first few chapters may be rather short and/or just a little abrupt. Please let me know what you think.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

No matter what popular opinion claimed, Kanetsu Karui and Nii Samui of Kumogakure were _not_ rivals, nor was Samui several years older than her teammates (Though for the latter, it was understandable how some might have come to that conclusion).

Karui and Samui met in the Kumogakure Academy during their second year in class. Two seven year olds on the training ground accidentally crossed paths after class.

Samui was the top of her class. Karui… was not. In particular, Karui had issues with theory of elemental ninjutsu, her head aching at the very thought of having to do the equations and read the history behind it. She was always more at home on the training ground with a kunai or a tanto or wakizashi (the students weren't introduced to katanas until their genin years, if their sensei so chose) clasped in her small hands, in physical exertion and sweat and blood. Not bookwork.

On the other hand, while Karui was popular with her classmates, Samui was something of a social outcast. Her taciturn and reserved personality was only part of it; being a member of the Nii clan she was the paternal cousin of Kumogakure's younger jinchuuriki, and familial association with Nii Yugito didn't do Samui any favors, even if she wasn't all that familiar with Yugito personally.

While Samui was outwardly quiet and markedly cold, she was also possessed of a keen sense of personal honor—a famous-infamous trait of her clan—and said personal honor would not allow her to sit by and watch another classmate suffer.

What followed was Samui's rescue of Karui's academic and shinobi career.

And once Karui got over Samui's outer coldness, they became friends, though Samui was never any less reserved than she was the day they met.


	2. 02

**Characters**: Chiyo, Koharu, Tsunade**  
Pairings**: None**  
A/N**: This thought was too glorious to pass up.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

Before there was the rivalry of Akasuna no Chiyo and Senju Tsunade, there was the rivalry of Akasuna no Chiyo and Utatane Koharu.

The two women were nearly the same age, and met at the close of the First War, just as the surrender was being signed. Chiyo was a member of the Kazekage's guard, Koharu of the Hokage's.

Chiyo was a member of the Suna ANBU a rising star in the Puppet Corps. at the time, widely believed by many to the be the prospective leader of the Corps. Koharu was a skilled genjutsu user, a renowned beauty within her village, and, to those who weren't her friends, probably best known for being a Grade-A uppity bitch.

While Koharu was being her usual charming self (made even more unbearable than usual by the Leaf's victory), Chiyo was seriously wondering whether or not the arrogant Leaf nin opposite her outside the tent wasn't seriously asking her to just kill her now. That sort of attitude did tend to confer upon itself an air of the suicidal.

As it stood, Chiyo decided not to kill Koharu, and instead settled for another, equally diabolical avenue.

She was going to prank her.

That night, when Koharu went to bed, she had no idea that the next morning she would wake up itching, covered in a rash that would grow so severe as to permanently disfigure her pretty looks with pockmarks that would only start to fade some thirty years later, when Koharu would no longer feel the need to coat her face in makeup to go outside without being ridiculed. There was no greater fall for the pride in a woman, Chiyo reasoned, than the loss of beauty.

Whereas Koharu never forgot the one who had disfigured her, Chiyo forgot Koharu the moment she got back to Suna.

She had bigger fish to fry, after all.

-0-

And the reason Koharu hated Tsunade so much was because of the chuckling the impertinent—and reveling in all the beauty Koharu had lost overnight—girl had engaged in when she learned of what Chiyo had done to her.


	3. 03

**Characters**: Shiho**  
Pairings**: None**  
A/N**: Not much to say. As ever, feedback would be appreciated.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

Shiho had always been a creature of libraries and rooms with the windows pulled shut so no light could enter. Genin at seven, chunin at nine though she never advanced beyond that rank, she was fiercely intelligent and possessed the sort of mind that could crack any puzzle presented to it.

But she was always shut up in that room in the unit, so swamped with work that she was verily a hostage to her job and rarely even allowed to leave. Sometimes Shiho wondered if the world beyond was even real or just a fantasy concocted by her superiors for some reason she had yet to fathom.

So she welcomed any chance to venture out into the fresh air, even if it was during a hostile invasion of her village. Any excuse was enough.

Any excuse at all.


	4. 04

**Characters/Pairings**: Temari, Gaara**  
A/N**: Nothing to report.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

Temari was enough herself to realize she was scared, when her heart started to pound and palpitate every time her small brother came into the room. Her pupils dilated, her throat started to close, and she could feel her pulse in her fingertips.

All this fuss over a nine-year-old boy.

But Gaara wasn't any normal nine-year-old.

He was the Desert's feral child, a creature who left black trails of blood behind him on the dunes instead of footprints. He would kill anyone, anything that got in his way (_"Don't get in my way."_; maybe this was Gaara's idea of mercy), without mercy, without prejudice.

All those who attempted to rise against the Desert's creature of sand and blood would fall, fall bloodily, fall completely. There was no hope for survival.

Even at twelve Temari was a blooded kunoichi. She knew how to fight, how to kill.

And knowing how to kill meant she knew a killer when she saw one.

Temari was no coward.

But she knew she was right to be afraid.


	5. 05

**Characters/Pairings**: Sakura**  
A/N**: Again, nothing to say.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

_Self-worth, self-worth, self-worth_. It was a single word that rang through Sakura's mind and taunted, tormented her to no end. A simple, solitary word. So close, yet the thing that lay on the mountaintop, surrounded by every insurmountable obstacle imaginable.

Really, did she have any at all?

All her self-worth had been attached to other people, what they thought of her.

First Ino, then Sasuke, then Kakashi in conjunction with Sasuke, then Tsunade, then Naruto. The only thing that kept Sakura sane was the thought that maybe these people thought well of her, that maybe they saw her as a good person, a strong kunoichi. She wanted so much for these people to think highly of her, had invested literally everything in the way others saw her.

And thanks to that, she hadn't left any self-worth for her self. Nothing.

So, an impossible dream, self-worth remained.


	6. 06

**Characters/Pairings**: Tenten**  
A/N**: Tenten strikes me as the sort of person who knows how to use _everything_ as a weapon.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

Tenten was the best. When it came to weapons and knowledge of them, she was simply the best that could be found anywhere in Hi no Kuni.

Kunai, shuriken, senbon, katana, nodachi, wakizashi, tanto, naginata, kusarigama, the bo staff, even the yumi. Tenten had mastered the art of fighting with any and every weapon known to man and could utilize anything she got her hands on as a weapon.

Her ninjutsu was average, her genjutsu somewhat mediocre, her taijutsu above average but at times overshadowed by her teammates. Tenten didn't care.

She was the only one of them who knew how to kill someone with a nail clipper, so she saw no reason to improve her genjutsu as long as improvisation remained an asset to her.


	7. 07

**Characters/Pairings**: Mei, Yagura, Madara**  
A/N**: Nothing to say.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

Mei knew better to do anything but keep her silence when the criticisms and insults leveled at her predecessor began to fly, as they inevitably did. She'd begun to detect a pattern—one of the councilors started to open his trap twice a week, like clockwork, on Mondays and Thursdays, especially when his arthritis was acting up.

Yes, Yagura had been mind-controlled by the Sandaime Mizukage Uchiha Madara.

Yes, he had committed unspeakable (even by Kiri standards) atrocities under the control of Madara.

And _yes_, Mei had been the de facto leader of the faction that finally revealed to Yagura that he was being controlled, after which time Yagura expelled Madara and, after realizing that he could still be controlled from a distance, had the Sanbi removed from him in order to eliminate the threat he posed to Kirigakure.

(Yes, it was all true, and Mei repeated the three facts in her mind with increasing levels of irritation for each one, whenever said arthritic councilor went on a tear.)

But there were some things that had conveniently been forgotten amidst all the chaos.

While Yagura was the one who had orchestrated the bloody rituals concerning graduation from the Academy (almost certainly a measure by Madara to alienate him from his people), he had _not_ been the one who instigated the bloodline purges of Kiri. _That_ had been Madara; Yagura had always attempted to put them to an end but had never quite managed to get the shinobi in line.

Second, Yagura had (albeit unofficially) adopted Mei, an orphan who was the last of her clan, so that was, for all intents and purposes her _father_ they were lambasting.

But Mei kept her silence, restrained her tongue. There was no use nitpicking now that Yagura was dead; she doubted he would have cared either way.

Mei was a creature of silences, when listening to the pauses between words had been at one point of her life a necessity to stay alive and relatively whole.


	8. 08

**Characters/Pairings**: Mei, Ao**  
A/N**: Ah, see, _here's_ the example of shortness and abruptness I was talking about. However, I wanted to keep this since I can't help but think that Mei probably _isn't_ going to kill Ao for all his "remarks" on her marital status.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

Mei wasn't really going to kill Ao. _Really._

Ao had been the first one to tell her he suspected Yagura was not "himself", and when she had finally been persuaded to conduct investigations herself he had stood by her the whole time. He was the only one who knew the story start to finish and the only one Mei truly felt she could rely on.

But if he made a smart comment about Mei's marital status (really? She was only twenty-seven) one more time, the Uchiha boy wasn't the only one who would leave scars on the sensor's body.


	9. 09

**Characters/Pairings**: Shizune, Tsunade**  
A/N**: Nothing to say.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

_Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…_

Somehow, Shizune was always made privy to the deconstruction of others, their descent rather than their rise.

Tsunade was a mess. Undeniably, an utterly irredeemable mess. She had no business being the leader of a one-man village, let alone a hidden village of the most successful (up to the time of Pein's invasion) shinobi nation on the continent. Shizune was in a position to know.

She had always tailed Tsunade. She had to, considering the sort of trouble her mistress got into; Tsunade made a career, not as a kunoichi, not as a medic, not as a Hokage, but as a trouble maker and one who got into trouble. Tsunade actually seemed to be actively trying to get herself killed, just to see if Shizune cared enough to show up to bail her out.

Of course she showed up to get her mistress out of those tight situations. How could she do anything less?

It didn't stop Shizune from being tired, though. Tired of having to chase after Tsunade every minute of her life, to run into the filthy, seedy bars after her, to track into dens of corruption where Shizune would never have dared to walk normally.

So even though Shizune thought Tsunade would be a disaster for Konoha, she was happy when Tsunade accepted the position of Hokage.

Because even though Tsunade was a mess, she was the best Konoha was going to get, so they all might as well suck it up and deal with it.


	10. 10

**Characters/Pairings**: NaruHina, NaruSaku, Jiraiya**  
A/N**: Nothing to say, except that Hinata pines too much and doesn't actively chase the boy nearly often enough (Which is to say never).**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

Hinata was present the day Naruto returned to Konohagakure from his training with Jiraiya. She had not heard in advance but had happened to hear his joyous, noisy greeting to the village at large and rushed towards the scene, cheeks flaming and bearing a smile unlike any that had been seen on her face before.

She was so buoyantly happy at the thought of seeing Naruto again.

The sight that met her when she laid eyes on him gave Hinata pause. Naruto had gotten taller, no longer the runt of their year. He had grown quite handsome, at least in Hinata's eyes, though she knew there would always be those who disagreed.

But it was the registering in Hinata's pearly eyes of who Naruto was with that made her jump into the nearest alley, and refrain from greeting him.

Sakura.

Always Sakura.


	11. 11

**Characters**: Mito  
**Pairings**: None  
**A/N**: I. Love. Mito. I have no idea why, except that my well-known love for insanely minor characters probably accounts for this.  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

It is the fate of some to always be remembered as a beloved figure. _Senju Hashirama for one, except for those whom he wronged with his idealism and his at times overwhelming desire to augment the strength of Konohagakure._

It is the fate of some to be the hero of their own village and the villain of all others. _Namikaze Minato might be the greatest hero of Konohagakure but to all other villages he is the most hated monster who has ever lived._

It is the fate of some to always be remembered and in that remembrance to be figures of controversy. _People don't know whether Tsunade is a hero or a contemptible drunk. _They are remembered fondly by some and with exasperation by others. _Jiraiya is always associated with two things: heroism and voyeurism. _Some are thought of as both geniuses and psychopaths. _All those who know exactly why Orochimaru was driven from Konoha all agree that he is a scientific genius and also that he probably needs to be committed._

And some?

Some are forgotten, like Uzumaki Mito. Some are heroes who always sought to serve a village not even theirs by birth, and they are never remembered for that. They are instead forgotten, overshadowed by the heroes who lived in their day, and if they are remembered, they are only remembered as someone's _wife_ or someone's _mother_ or someone's _grandmother._

If they are like Uzumaki Mito, they are forgotten as a hero, and only remembered this way.

And that is worse than being forgotten altogether.


End file.
